American Dreamers: Michael Jacobs Interviews The Crazy Guy Down The Street
Tucked away in forgotten corners of the country, oddballs, kooks, artists and performers live quiet (and not-so-quiet) lives of faith, love and revenge. San Francisco filmmaker Michael Jacobs scoured the nation to find a heaping handful of some of the most colorful characters to spill onto the screen since AMERICAN MOVIE. Short but rich interviews capture the unique intensity of a woman demolition derby driver, an outer-space alien hunter, a castle-builder, a fire-breathing side-show act and more.
The success of Jacob's previous work - the excellent tragicomic documentary AUDIENCE OF ONE - was enough to get Sony Pictures to peel off a few hundreds and get him and his small crew on the road to interview this cavalcade of whimsy. The "film" is designed to be a series of webcasts and are appearing on Sony's CRACKLE site. The first 'sode is already up - and it happens to be my favorite one as I had the good fortune to have seen this place in person. (Before it became popular, they used to have parties here.)AMERICAN DREAMERS was screened to a local and lucky audience at The Dark Room last Thursday night. The crew and Jacobs took questions and two "stars" from the film were on hand, too.
The two "stars" were local hero Frank Chu, who nursed a cold Budweiser and happily discussed all things 12 Galaxies, and Captain Kazoo who was parked out front handing out kazoos to anyone bold enough to take something for free from an odd-looking man sitting in a sketchy van on Mission.
Solid editing and camera-work, a decidedly hands-off approach and just plain endearing and extraordinarily human characters made AMERICAN DREAMERS a warm and authentic delight. It may not keep the same impact when chaptered and put online, but a few of the interviews are likely to go viral. Watch for emails about "that crazy alien hunter guy." Good stuff.
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